Not That Easy (11 page)

“
All good?” asked Nick.

I looked up at him in surprise. “Sorry, got a bit, um, distracted. But, yeah, all good.”

“Sweet,” he said and grinned at me. “So, do you want to get out of here?”

“Already?”

“If you want. Or we can get another drink.”

“I don't think I'm drunk enough yet,” I blurted out.

He laughed. “Cheers. Didn't realize you needed to be off your face to be able to come home with me.”

“I didn't mean it like that.” I grinned. “I just . . . one more drink?”

“Let's do it,” he said. “I'm not the kind of guy to ever turn down more beers.”

“SE1, five Lighthouse Road,” said Nick to the cab driver, before turning to me and grabbing my face. He pulled me towards him and started kissing me. I closed my eyes and let myself fall into the drunken swirl of my mind. The one beer had turned into several and now it was gone midnight and we were in a cab back to Nick's place. The spontaneous one-night stand I'd been trying to orchestrate on my online dates was about to happen—but it looked like I was too drunk to enjoy it. Bollocks.

“Where do you live?” I asked Nick, breaking away from our kiss.

“Waterloo,” he said. “It's not too far from here. And, bonus, I live alone.”

“You do? What do you do again?” I asked him. I'd spent the last few hours drinking with him, but knew absolutely no details about his life. It was pretty much the opposite of my online dates where I knew the basics before we'd even met.

“I'm a banker,” he said.

I gulped. I was going home with a banker. He didn't even live in East London. He lived in Zone One. No one I knew lived in Zone One.

“Here you are,” said the cab driver. I looked up in surprise. We were outside a glass block of flats. I could see the London Eye and we were just by the Thames.

Nick handed the driver two banknotes and opened the door. I followed him out of the cab in a daze. I was now officially terrified. He probably brought a girl back here every night and I would just be the sexually inexperienced one who could never compare to the others. He steered me into the lift and I gaped in surprise.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“Your lift has mirrored walls,” I squeaked. “It's like . . . a hotel.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I know it's pretty fancy. My work paid for me to come over here from New Zealand so they've hooked me up with this sweet pad.”

“How old are you?”

“Erm, twenty-nine, why?”

“Just . . . no reason,” I said nervously. He was so out of my league. He was an actual grown-up man with a legit job that paid for him to have the kind of flat I could only dream of.

“Please tell me you are over eighteen,” he said.

I looked at his four reflections in the mirrors and clutched my head. “Ow, the mirrors hurt. And yes, of course I am.”

“How old?”

“Guess.”

“Twenty-two?”

“No,” I said, annoyed that I looked my age. “I'm twenty-three.” I had just lied. Why had I lied? One year didn't even make a difference. If I was going to lie I should have at least pretended I was twenty-five.

“Oh,” he said. “At least you'll age well, eh? Anyway, this is it. Home sweet home.”

He pushed open the door and my jaw dropped in amazement. The living room/dining room area had a huge glass window that looked on to the Thames. You could see the entire London skyline lit up. It was beautiful.

“Oh my fucking God,” I gasped. “This is insane.”

“Isn't it? But the best part . . . is the bedroom.”

I followed him eagerly into the bedroom, expecting a revolving bed and mirrored ceiling. But it was an ordinary double room with some wardrobes and a TV. I turned around with raised eyebrows and Nick pulled me towards him with a kiss. This was it—finally,
finally
I was having my ONS. I pulled my top over my shoulders and undid my bra quickly. My jeans and knickers followed suit.

“Oh, hello,” he said. I realized he hadn't even removed his jacket and I was standing in front of him stark naked. He was looking at my body appraisingly. I stood up tall and realized I felt very sexy being in a strange, hot man's glass penthouse. Okay, it wasn't actually on the top floor, but it was still very high up.

I kicked off my heels and walked backwards away from Nick. I felt like the confident French girl in a film noir
. “
Um, where are you going, Ellie?” he asked.

I ignored him and walked into the living room. I stood up against the window imagining how attractive my silhouette must look against the London skyline. I turned my head slowly over my shoulder to look back at him, craning it to the side.

But he wasn't there. I turned around in annoyance. What was the point of me acting sexy if he wasn't going to be there to enjoy it?

“Nick?” I called out. There was silence. “Nick??”

“Here,” he said, as he walked out of the bedroom. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, just looking down at the city,” I said in a breathy, light voice. I imagined it was how Brigitte Bardot spoke when she was trying to seduce someone.

“Nice,” he said, running his hands across my naked body. I threw my head back hoping I looked as sexy as I felt. I parted my lips waiting for him to kiss me. He took his hands off me and peered out of the window. “It really is fucking high up, eh?”

His accent was starting to irritate me and why was he looking at the view and not my naked body? “Yeah, no shit,” I snapped.

“So I've got an idea,” he said, turning to face me with a grin. “Let's chuck eggs out of the window.”

“What?” I cried out. How had my sexy routine resulted in him wanting to egg London?

“It will be fun. We can try and hit stuff.”

“Nick. That's really dangerous. We could hurt someone walking on the street.”

“I guess,” he said. “But it's pretty late. The streets are kinda empty.”

“Maybe we should just go into the bedroom,” I sighed. My film noir was slowly turning into an American teen lad movie.

“Cool.” He grinned. We walked into his bedroom and I lay down on his bed. This time he took off his clothes too, and lay on top of me with his boxers on. We started kissing slowly, and then faster, and then he pulled his boxers off.

I felt his penis harden against my vagina. It rubbed against it and I moaned in pleasure. “Ow,” he cried out.

“What?” I asked in surprise.

“Nothing, just a bit spiky,” he said, and carried on kissing me.

“Sorry?” I said in a strangled voice. He thought my pubes were spiky. They hurt his penis. My mother
fucking
pubes were ruining my life yet again.

“They're just a bit coarse. I don't care. I think a little bit of hair is sexy.” He grinned at me and I felt mollified. At least he wasn't into hairless pussies.

He rubbed his hands over my coarse pubes, and his penis came closer to my vagina. I wondered if this was it. Was my vagina going to get penetrated for the second time? Oh
fuck
, what if he had a Boyzilian?!

I pushed him off me and stared at his groin. He had trimmed pubes just like me, and no sign whatsoever of a Boyzilian. I breathed out in relief and then grinned to myself. We were pubic kindred spirits.

“Fuck me,” I said. Oh my God, where was this coming from? Perhaps I'd been a
femme fatale
in my past life. “Now,” I commanded.

“Um, I need a condom first,” he said.

Oh shit. I'd forgotten the condom. I must be drunker than I thought—which meant this would be the perfect moment to brazenly admit I had one with me. “Oh yeah. I've got one if you want,” I said, as casually as I could.

“Cool,” he said. I walked over to my bag with a grin and rifled through my purse until I found Emma's condom.

“Here you go,” I said nervously, holding it out to him.

He barely glanced at the packaging and just ripped it open. He slid the condom over his penis. I breathed out a sigh of relief that he hadn't expected me to do it for him. The last time I'd tried was during PSHE lessons at school and the tip of the practice banana had gone through the top of the condom.

“Now I'm going to fuck you,” he said. “Get on your knees.”

Ooh dominating. Exciting. I obeyed and got on all fours on his bed. He knelt behind me and grabbed my hips. I felt his penis rubbing against my lips as it searched for my vagina. He took his left hand off my right boob and guided his penis inside me. I gasped as the rubber chafed against my barely used vagina.

He pushed himself back and forth, thrusting his penis inside me. I cried out in excitement.

“You're so tight,” he cried out. “It's amazing.”

I flushed with pride as his balls thwacked against my vagina. I hoped they weren't getting itched by my spiky pubes.

He thrust faster. I gasped out loud. I could feel it now. I imagined someone watching us. We probably looked like a scene from a porno. Me on all fours on his bed, him fucking me from behind, and his hands on my tits. I moaned loudly. I threw myself into my one-time role as a porn star, and began moving my body with his.

He gasped loudly, slapped my arse, and then went silent and stopped moving.

“Um . . .” I said. “Have you . . . um . . .”

“What?”

“Come?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry. I just comed.”

“Came.”

“You came?”

“No,” I said slowly. “You came. You didn't ‘comed.'”

“What?”

“It's ‘came' not ‘comed,'” I cried out in exasperation. “Your grammar's wrong.”

“Oh, okay,” he said. He slid out of me and a lump dropped out of me onto the bed. I craned my neck around in alarm and realized it was just the condom, weighted down with semen.

I collapsed onto the bed in exhaustion. It felt like I'd just done a four-minute press-up. Nick fell on top of me and rubbed my boobs. “That was so good,” he said, snuggling his head into me. Were one-night stands meant to be so . . . cozy?

“Yeah,” I said ambivalently. And then I realized—I'd done it. I'd just had a one-night stand. I had to text Emma and Lara. “One
sec.” I grinned. I leaned across him and found my phone lying on the floor. It had new messages.

•   •   •

Emma: Oh my God, his penis was huge. Done it three times. Exhausted.

Lara: Jealous. Cosmo was so dull I abandoned him. Getting drunk with Meely and her gf.

Emma: Wooo!

Me: Well I just had my first ever ONS.

Me: We had the same pubic situation. No Boyzilian in sight.

Me: Didn't come but still feel pretty damn euphoric.

I woke up yawning. The sunlight was streaming onto my face and I could see Big Ben through the window. Wait. Big Ben. I didn't live near Big Ben. I bolted upright and looked around me.

Nick was lying next to me, snoring. I closed my eyes slowly as everything came back to me. The downside of living a slutty life meant that I was now spending a lot of time waking up in strange places. But this was the first time that I'd woken up next to someone so attractive.

Even when he was passed out and hungover, he looked good. His dirty blond curls were mussed up, his skin had the kind of tan I couldn't even find in a bottle, and he actually had dimples. Symmetrical ones. I seriously couldn't believe he'd wanted me.

I contemplated taking a selfie with him while he was sleeping to show the girls, but figured it was too risky. How could you explain getting caught with a camera in his face? Instead I yawned again and stood up. My head was banging. Repeatedly. I felt my nipples harden and looked down. I was stark naked.

I walked over to a chest of drawers and began rooting through them. I found a white T-shirt and put it on, then absentmindedly picked up my phone and walked into the next room with the huge window looming down at me. With a wince, I remembered my film noir escapades. Hopefully Nick was too pissed to remember them. I collapsed on the sofa and pulled out my mobile.

It had a bunch of new messages. And some missed calls. I looked at the calls and my heart stopped. Five missed calls from Maxine. Why was she calling me on a Saturday?

Then it hit me. It wasn't Saturday. It was Friday. And it was . . . 10:25 a.m. Which meant I was an hour and twenty-five . . . oh, now twenty-six minutes late for work.

Oh fuck.

I called her back immediately. I needed to come up with an excuse. Something plausible like e. coli or—

“Ellie, how nice of you to call,” she answered.

“I'm so sorry,” I gushed. “I just woke up feeling absolutely awful. I've been, um, throwing up all morning.”

“Late night at Drop and Pull?”

“What?” I asked in shock.

“Your friend tweeted it and mentioned you.”

“Oh fuck,” I breathed out.

“Fuck indeed,” she said. “You'd better have got me some new material for a column.”

“I do,” I cried out, knowing there was no way in hell I could write about my one-night stand on the Internet. “Loads.”

“Good,” she said. “Well, because your latest one already has five thousand hits I'll let you off. Take today off and come in on Monday with your next column done.”

“Oh my God . . . really?”

“Yes. But I'm not going to make a habit of it.”

“Thank you so much, Maxine,” I started saying before I realized
she had already hung up. Who knew my boss had a heart? I snuggled into the sofa deciding I would deal with the issue of my next column later in the weekend. SHIT—MY COLUMN.

I pulled up the home page of the
London Mag
. It was right there at the top.
NSFW. By Ellie Kolstakis.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. It looked amazing. I smiled in spite of myself. I was an actual real columnist. I clicked on it. My words were there on the page, and there was a picture of me at the bottom. Ohmigod there were comments too. I clicked on them excitedly.

•   •   •

Who is this moron? No wonder she's single.

A Boyzilian? Sounds made up to me. And nothing wrong with a nosebleed. Abandoning someone is a bit drastic.

Oh. Perhaps there'd be some nicer ones on my Twitter? I checked my account and my blood froze.

•   •   •

Really nice you blogged about our date. Classy stuff. Didn't realize my pubes were so offensive to you.

It was from a Ben84. My hand flew to my mouth. He had seen it. Why hadn't it occurred to me that he would see it?! Please could JT have not seen his. It was so much worse that I'd abandoned him post-nosebleed. I scrolled through my messages but there were only general hate comments. Clearly, I was not a modern day Carrie Bradshaw. The only Carrie I was emulating was the psycho prom girl from the horror movie.

I exited Twitter and flicked to my WhatsApp.

•   •   •

Emma: Weird but congrats. Glad you enjoyed, babe.

Lara: Yeah. God, so knackered, not at all envious of you both at work.

Emma: Ugh, I know so exhausted at my desk.

Lara: You made it to work Ellie?

Emma: OMG, El, my colleague just showed me your column!! Congrats, girl, it's amazing.

Lara: So proud of you. Ignore the comments. They're all fuckers.

Lara: Ellie? Why haven't you seen these messages?

They had sent the messages at 9:30 a.m. because unlike me they had clearly set their alarms. I was an idiot.

•   •   •

Me: So I didn't quite make it to work . . . But Maxine gave me day off because she's so impressed with my column. Unfortunately no one else is.

Lara: ?

Me: Ben84 tweeted me his disgust at my column.

Emma: Ha ha. You've made my day. Can't believe you didn't go to work.

Me: I know. Hanging out on the sofa at Nick's place.

Emma: Aw. Very coupley.

Me: No, I'm alone.

Lara: That's weird. Go into the bedroom.

Emma: Seconded. Go wake him up with a blowie.

I rolled my eyes and tucked my phone under the pillow. I turned on the TV and saw Kate Winslet standing up on the front of
Titanic
's deck with Leo's arms behind her. “I'm flying,” she gasped. I curled up in the blanket to watch it. Ben84 was irrelevant—I was hanging out in my one-night stand's flat and Leo was on TV.

It was now almost noon and Nick still hadn't woken up. I had finished
Titanic
, redone my makeup after crying most of it off, and now I was starving. I had even considered poaching the eggs he had wanted to throw out of the window but decided that was a step too far.

I padded into the bedroom and looked at the bed. He was breathing deeply. The duvet was covering most of his body but I could see his tanned torso peeking out. It wasn't as toned as Ben84's, but then it also didn't come with a Boyzilian. Thank God.

I wasn't quite sure what to do now. Did I leave? Shouldn't I wait for him to wake up so we could have breakfast together, and then I could do my FIRST EVER ACTUAL walk of shame? I knew I would never see him again, because it was a one-nighter, but that just meant I was extra keen for a morning together.

I coughed loudly. He didn't move. I sat on the bed and prodded him. “Mmm,” he groaned. I prodded him harder. “Ow,” he cried and rubbed his eyes.

I quickly positioned myself seductively on his bed and mussed up my hair. “Oh hi.” I smiled. “How are you?”

“Hey.” He yawned. “What time is it?”

“Midday.”

“Fuck,” he cried out and jumped out of bed. This was not the morning kiss I had been expecting. “Why didn't you wake me up earlier? I need to get to work.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “I . . . thought it was Saturday. Then my boss gave me the day off and I guess I assumed you had a day off too.”

“No,” he said grimly, as he grabbed his mobile. “Luckily, I don't have any meetings today so no one important will notice I've been gone half the morning. I'm just going to jump in the shower, do you want to go in after me?”

“Um, no it's fine, I'll shower at home,” I said.

“Cool, see you in a sec.” He walked past me with a towel slung over his shoulder. I sat on his bed and sighed. Clearly my morning brunch was not going to happen today. I would have to spend my day off alone. I didn't even have any money to spend on retail therapy.

I started picking up my discarded clothes from various locations around the room. My knickers had ended up on the radiator and one of my socks was well and truly lost. I squeezed my bare feet into my heels and winced in pain as they rubbed against my blisters, and I stood up tall. Why hadn't I worn flats?

All dressed up with nowhere to go, I treaded around Nick's room. He didn't have any pictures on the wall, any photos of friends, or a single personal artifact. It was a bachelor's pad to the max. The only personal item I could see was a packet of developed photographs on the dresser. Could I . . . ? The shower was still running so I quickly opened the envelope and pulled out the pictures. They were of Nick and a bunch of his friends. Boring.

I kept on shuffling through the pile until I found a photograph of the blonde ex-girlfriend. Sara. She was totally naked and sitting astride a chair. She had no pubes whatsoever. Her body was
Playboy
-perfect.

Slowly, I put everything back as I had found it. I shouldn't have snooped. Now I just felt very, very inadequate. Of course my tight vagina hadn't lived up to Sara's incredible non-spiky body. Nick had only slept with me as a rebound from Sara. It was a fact; he had told
me. I grabbed my bag and walked up to the bathroom. I had to say bye and get out of here immediately. My cheeks were flushing with shame and I didn't want to be here anymore.

“Nick?” I rapped lightly on the bathroom door.

It swung open to reveal Nick standing there in his towel grinning at me with wet hair. “Hey. Sorry I took so long.”

“No worries,” I said. “I'd better go anyway. So . . . just thought I'd say bye.” I stood fidgeting with the strap of Emma's studded clutch bag.

“Oh okay,” he said. “If you just wait five minutes, I can come with you to the Tube?”

“No it's fine, honestly. I'm not feeling too great. Hungover.”

“Yeah, me too. Anyway, it's been great, Ellie. We should do this again sometime.”

“Mm, sure,” I said. He leaned towards me and gave me a quick peck on the lips. “Bye then.”

“Wait, give me your number,” he said. I sighed. He wasn't going to call me so why did he need my phone number? The amount of men over London who had my number and would never use it was depressingly high. I tapped my number into his phone. I supposed there was no real harm adding one more man to the list. “I've just missed called you so you have my number too,” he added.

“Okay, cheers. Well, see you later,” I said and walked out of his flat. I let out a deep breath. I had survived my first ever ONS—and, even better, it turned out I wasn't one of those girls who fell in love with the guy immediately afterwards. I had no desire to ever hear from Nick again. It was okay to be his rebound for the night, because I'd been using him too, but a regular thing? Absolutely not. I couldn't be a slut and up my numbers if I kept shagging the same guy.

I exited the lift and stumbled down the street in last night's clothes. I could feel tourists staring at me and I grinned to myself. They were probably subtly taking photos of the typical London girl leaving her
eligible one-night stand's apartment at midday. I hoped my face was aglow with postcoital hormones. Only, I was leaving
sans
orgasm. Could your face still glow if you hadn't come the night before?

That was frustrating. All I wanted was to orgasm from penetration but my dream was still eluding me. As exciting as it was getting all the other elements of an ONS, that was the one I really wanted. Maybe there was a reason it wasn't happening? Like, maybe something was wrong with me? I felt a wave of anxiety at the thought. What if some women couldn't orgasm from penetration and I was one of them? Hell, I might even be unorgasmable.